Other articles by Howard Fischer:

Failed legislative bill leaves public-financed campaigns in doubtBurns: Brewer bungling her job House approves boost in funding for those seeking office next year 3 recommended to Brewer to fill seat on high court AZ can enact own greenhouse gas regsRecession reins in sprawl Pet bills aplenty pouring forth from Legislature Brewer wants budget right away, but not those other, lesser bills Flat-tax plan could hit walletsRepeal of ban on sparklers nears final OK

Mechanical
Komatsu Equipment Co
Resident Field Mechanic Administrative & Professional
Tucson Urban League
CEO/President Finance and Accounting
Charles E. Gillman Company
Accounting Specialist Sales and Marketing
Everready Glass
Sales Reps Administrative & Professional
Jorgensen Brooks Group
Counselor Trades/Construction
RANCHO RESORT
MAINTANANCE POSITION

PHOENIX — The association that represents most hospitals in Arizona agreed Tuesday to halt what the U.S. Justice Department charged was illegally setting rates for what they all pay temporary nurses.

The deal, announced late Tuesday, bars the Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association from setting "presumptive" rates hospitals will pay nursing registries — an arrangement that precluded agencies representing nurses from offering their services to a higher-bidding hospital.

Thomas Barnett, head of the Justice Department's antitrust division, said the hospitals' rate-setting practice was illegally and unfairly depressing the wages paid to registry nurses, saving the hospitals up to $12.7 million a year at the nurses' expense.

"Today's action restores competition in the market for temporary nursing services, which not only will benefit nurses, but also help to improve patient care in Arizona," Barnett said in a prepared statement. He said the settlement eliminates the association's "anticompetitive activities."

Andy Gordon, attorney for the hospital association, denied its members, which control nearly 80 percent of all hospital beds in the state, broke any laws. But the hospitals will no longer be using those preset rates.

Most hospitals rely on nursing services when they cannot fill staffing needs with their own employees. The hospital association set rates its members would pay the temporary agencies.

The result, the Justice Department charged, was that the nurses' pay was below competitive market levels. But the lawsuit said the hospitals, by virtue of their share of the market, could make those rates stick.

According to Barnett, the hospital association all but conceded that point in communications with its own members as well as with similar groups in other states.

"In advertising materials, AzHHA (the association) has estimated the bill rates its member hospitals paid agencies were as much as 12 percent lower than they would have been if the agencies had been able to negotiate competitively with hospitals," the lawsuit states. The Justice Department said that saving to hospitals translates to $10 million to $12.7 million per year — money the federal attorneys said should have been paid to agencies and, by extension, to the temporary nurses they hired.

The lawsuit says the result is that nurses working for the agencies that contracted with the hospital association made less money than nurses not hired through the registry.

Further, Barnett said, the association pressured hospitals not to go out and contract on their own with agencies that did not work with the official registry.

Gordon acknowledged all the hospitals paid the same basic rate for temporary nurses. But he denied that the actions were anti-competitive, saying that the hospitals themselves were competing against others, such as surgical centers and nursing homes, for the limited number of nurses available.

The deal, which is subject to approval by a federal judge, specifically prohibits the association and its member hospitals from agreeing on uniform rates paid for temporary nurses. It also bars the hospitals from sharing information about what each pays with other members.

The association also agreed not to pressure its members to hire their nurses only from specified agencies, or to boycott other agencies that do not cooperate with the association.

It does allow the association to keep its central registry for hiring nurses and set standards for training, background checks and insurance, but only as long as each hospital gets to negotiate the rates directly with each nursing agency. The association will be able to charge hospitals a 2 percent administrative fee.